1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a positioning mechanism for positioning a cleaning device in a main body of an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer and the like, the cleaning device being provided for cleaning a photoconductive surface of the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an electrophotographic copier, after a toner image is formed on a photoconductive drum and transferred onto a paper, unnecessary toner adhered on a surface the photoconductive drum is removed by a cleaning device. Today, the efficiency of the cleaning device is improved by a system in which a fur brush cleans the surface before a blade is slid along the surface to scratch off the toner adhered thereon.
The blade and the fur brush of the cleaning device should be kept off the surface of the photoconductive drum when the image forming apparatus is not in operation, for example, during transportation and storage, in order to protect the surface of the photoconductive drum from being damaged. This is realized by setting the whole cleaning device at a position distanced from the photoconductive drum.
In order to set the cleaning device as mentioned above, a complicated mechanism is required for moving the whole cleaning device, and further, setting the cleaning device at a specified position is not easy. Moreover, since a driving force for rotating the fur brush is conveyed through gears from a driving system of a main body of the image forming apparatus, it is possible that the gears are not accurately engaged with each other when the cleaning device is not set exactly at the specified position.